Outlook Express is meant to be a universal e-mail and messaging client, offering access to standard
Internet e-mail and usenet services, but also proprietary services on a Local Area Network.
As a result, it is much more complex and slower for many tasks than a dedicated e-mail
program such as
Eudora Light or even the e-mail component built into
Netscape Communicator. If you have used Outlook at work,
Outlook Express will work much the same, but it will be much slower. Both were optimized
for a LAN, not dial-up access. If you have not used Outlook before, you may be happier with
Eudora.

The information on this webpage will only be useful to you if you have followed all the steps
of the Windows 98 Internet Connection Wizard Configuration. Specifically,
if you did not answer Yes to the
question
DoyouwanttosetupanInternetmailaccountnow?,
you will need to run the Windows 98 Internet Connection Wizard again.
Outlook Express e-mail will not be set up to work if the wizard hasn't done it.

If you did enter your e-mail information in the wizard, but you got some of your settings
wrong, you may be able to change them from the
Accounts
dialog box.

Sending and Receiving E-mail

To send any mail you have written and receive whatever e-mail is waiting in
you mailbox, click on
SendandReceive
on the
Tools
menu:

To compose a new message, click on the
Compose
menu:

Of course, you can always use the buttons on the toolbar below the menu
(look under File and Go).

Options

Outlook Express has an immense number of options, mostly because it is meant
to be used with many types of e-mail system and other services.
Your e-mail account is set up to use
standard internet e-mail, so many of the options will not apply.

To change your options, click on
Options
on the
Tools
menu:

There will be six tabs on the dialog box: general, Send, Read, Security, Dial Up, and Advanced.

General

The first tab is called General.
As a convenience, you may want to click the square box beside
AutomaticallyputpeopleIreplytoinmyAddressBook

Send

The second tab is called Send.
In the top section,
Mail sending format,
click the round button beside
Plaintext.
Yes, this means that you will not be able to put formatting on your message,
but if you sent mail in HTML format, many people will get gibberish
instead of what you meant them to see. You should do the same thing for
News sending format,
unless you are absolutely certain that you will only ever
send messages to places where everyone can read HTML format message

Read

The settings on this tab are mostly for News (usenet) reading. If you find the
font used to display your messages to be too large or small or illegible, you can
click on the
[Fonts...]
button near the bottom right to change it.

Security

The Security tab has three parts, Security Zones, Secure Mail, and Digial IDs.

In the Security Zones section, you will want to click on the
down-arrow at the right-hand side of the
Zone:
box, and then click on
Restrictedsiteszone.
This will prevent any Javascript or ActiveX scripts from running
when you read HTML-formatted messages, protecting you from automatic
running of trojan horse programs.

The middle and bottom sections can be ignored unless you want to be able to send
encrypted and authenticated mail. You will need to set up an identity Certificate
(called here a Digital ID) with a Certification Authority. This will only be of use to
you if the people you send you mail to also have Certificates. If you are interested,
click on the
[MoreInfo]
button at the bottom right in the Digital ID
section.

Dial Up

You have three basic choices for how Outlook Express handles your dial-up
connections.

You can click the round button beside
Donotdialaconnection
if you want to work offline or use an existing connection (i.e.,
if you are already dialed in, don't hang up to dial in again).

You can also click the round button beside
Dialthisconnection:
and select the connection you want to dial from the list to the right.
Warning: if you select this, that is exactly what will happen,
even if you are already dialed in!

You can also click the round button beside
AskmeifIwouldliketodialaconnection
if you want to be able to choose whether to dial in or not each time
you start Outlook Express.

The best setting is probably the first of these three.

You should probably also click on the square box beside
Warnmebeforeswitchingdialupconnections,
even if you only have one internet account, unless you choose the first
option above. Outlook Express will happily hang up
your existing connection and dial you right back in with the same connection if
you let it!

Advanced

You will probably not need to change anything on the Advanced tab.

Accounts

To adjust the settings for your e-mail account or accounts,
click on
Accounts
on the
Tools
menu:

You will see a dialog showing All of the accounts, including
some that are for directory services.
Click on the Mail tab to view only your mail account(s).

Now double-click on the
mail.albedo.net
account (you might have named it differently),
or click on it and then on the
[Properties]
button.

The Properties dialog will appear showing the General tab.

Make sure that the
Name:
and
E-mailaddress:
are correct.
Your e-mail address will resemble
username@mail.albedo.net,
where
username
is the name you enter along with your password to connect
to the internet. (It will be eight characters long at the maximum,
and all lowercase and/or numerals.)

The next tab will be Servers.

Under Server Information, both
Outgoingmail(SMTP):
and Incomingmail(POP3):
should be set to
mail.albedo.net.

Just below, you should see
Myincomingmailserverisa[POP3]server
-- if it does not say POP3, you will need to
create a new account.

Under Incoming Mail Server, the round button beside
Logonusing
should be filled in.
Your username should be filled in beside
Accountname:.
If you don't want to type your password every time you get
your mail, you can fill it in beside
Password:
-- but be aware that if you do that anyone who can access
your computer will be able to impersonate you via e-mail.